Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App

" People think if you're working class, there has to be some fascist element underneath. "

Related Quotes:

" In my flat in Chicago, I've got this big room with an office in the corner and a balcony so I can watch people go by. "

" I left Edinburgh to follow the London punk scene in 1978, singing and playing guitar in various bands. My income was sporadic, so I did anything to eke out some kind of subsistence - laying down slabs, working as a kitchen porter. "

" It was around the summer of 1982 when the drug problem really impacted. It became a lifestyle rather than a recreation. When you start lying and stealing, you cannot con yourself you're in control any more. "

" Every kind of book I've written has been written in a different way. There has not been any set time for writing, any set way, I haven't re-invented the process every time but I almost have. "

" A lot of my characters are anti-heroes that became heroes. "

" I just want to get on and tell stories. "

" When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music. "

" Before I started writing, I'd never read much fiction. I was more interested in non-fiction. I'm taking the same approach to theatre: I can operate from a position of ignorance and make up my own rules instead of being bound by customs and practice. "

" I have a lot of successful musician pals, and as I get older, I find that I'm lucky to be a writer. I have great anonymity compared to musicians who sell the same number of records as I do books. "

" I think a lot of people want me to be like the characters in the books: they want that kind of congruence. "

" Everybody that writes has their own area of inquiry. And mine has always been kind of, why is it that when life can be so hard and difficult, we compound it by self-sabotage, doing terrible things? That's always been my main area of inquiry, and it does lead you to dark places. "

" Historically, men have a hard time getting onboard with feminism, but I think that's changing. "

" The idea is not enough. And the most annoying thing for me as a writer is that people will come up to me and say, 'Hey, I've got a great idea for a book. I'm not a writer, but I've got a great story.' "

" I don't perceive an audience at all when I write a book. It's pure self-indulgence. "

" When I left school at 16, I became an apprentice television and radio technician, and was paid £17 a week, which was decent money in 1976. But the job turned sour when I gave myself an electric shock while repairing a television set. "

" I think the silences we have on some issues are inductive of the fact that we need to write about them more, but I think there are some issues you have to write in a sensitive way and in a way that respects the reality of the situation. If you can't do that, you should leave them alone. "

" The establishment, the newspapers, they try to create something called Scottish literature, but when people are actually going to write, they are not going to necessarily prescribe to that, they'll write what they feel. "

" It's really odd that I've got this kind of sullen reputation - I never saw myself that way. "

" I didn't have any concept of Trainspotting being published. It was a selfish act. I did it for myself. "

" There is a kind of mysticism to writing. "

" From 'Trainspotting' to 'Acid House,' I moved from urban realism into fantasy. "

" Sometimes a book influences me because it winds me up. There'll be something that gets under my skin and makes me think that I can do better. "

" If you're going to do something that's going to cause offence to people, you're always going to get a reaction. "

" Writing has been handed to me on a plate. "

" Sometimes I work purely 8-12 shifts, banging stuff into the computer. Other times, my office is like a scene from a detective movie, with Post-it Notes, plans, photographs all stuck on the walls and arrows going everywhere, and it's 4 A.M. "

" Politicians are so... detested; they don't actually walk amongst people now. "

" Middle-class people worry a lot about money. They worry a lot about job security, and they do a lot of nine-to-five stuff. "

" I'm always watching people over a short time frame, putting them in an extreme position. Sometimes you don't see the humanity in a person because the time frame is so short and the circumstance so extreme. "

" I think the novel is at one end of the art-entertainment continuum - the play in the middle - while TV and cinema veer a bit more towards entertainment. "

" As soon as you've written it, you're thinking about how it can move into different mediums. "